new technologies, new ideas, a new kind of home
Our friend Jason Churchward from The Smarter Home Club has shared a FANTASTIC write up on how to use a Shelly 1 module to control an inexpensive siren/strobe light he ordered from AliExpress.
Continue reading “Shelly 1 12v Outdoor Siren Strobe Alarm”
Paul Taylor from The Smarter Home Club wrote a GREAT tutorial on how to convert a Leviton dual decora switch to momentary. A momentary switch acts like a push button – only engaged while held. This is really great for use with a project like automated blinds or a custom doorbell and, as always, Paul takes the time to break it down so any of us can do it!
Continue reading “Leviton Dual Decora Switch Momentary Mod”
It is CONTEST TIME in the Smarter Home Club!
Our friends at Shelly are sponsoring a prize raffle for a sweet pack of loot, which contains one each: Shelly 1, Shelly 1PM, Shelly 2.5, and Shelly RGBW2
Finding a good GPS tracking sensor has been on my list for a while. While i’ve tested out a number of them, there’s usually some fault or quirk that makes me question if the balance of features are strong enough to justify the monthly GSM subscription required to use the device. That’s why I was immediately interested in Trakkit. There’s no cellular fee or subscription required – ever!
Continue reading “The Trakkit GPS Tracking Sensor”
Remember in the “old days” when people used to line up around the block and camp out for the release of a new iPhone? Amazon has managed to bring back a measure of that consumer excitement with a product that they pitched out last year, the Echo Auto. Unfortunately, it has been vaporware for most people, as we were able to request an invite back in Novemeber, but the actual devices have been few and far between.
Let’s talk a bit about home automation and safety.
You can go a long way in the process of automating your home without ever introducing any features that might conceivably endanger property or lives. Typically the worst thing that goes wrong with an automation to control a light is you wake up at the wrong hour or pay a little extra on your electric bill.
Continue reading “Fail-safe Design for Critical Home Automation Features”
Our first two entries in this project (read HERE) covered setting up the raspberry pi and flashing Tasmota onto the Wi-Fi plug. Now that we’ve got it configured, it is time to add the device to Hubitat so that we can get the most use out of it!
Continue reading “Flash a Wi-Fi Plug with Tasmota for Hubitat…. WITHOUT soldering! Part III”
In Part I (HERE), we set up a Raspberry Pi so that we can host Tuya Convert, the process that allows us to flash a Smart Life or Tuya Smart switch OTA. In this entry, we’re going to select a compatible Wi-Fi plug, set up Tuya Convert on the Pi, and flash the plug. This is a REALLY easy project. If you follow the steps carefully, you won’t run into any major problems and then, after a couple of conversions, you’ll have it down.
Continue reading “Flash a Wi-Fi Plug with Tasmota for Hubitat…. WITHOUT soldering! Part II”
Ladies and gentlemen, this project is FUN. We’re going to learn how to use a Raspberry Pi to flash a Smart Life/Tuya Smart Wi-Fi plug with Tasmota without soldering – OTA – meaning “Over The Air” – and set it up in Hubitat to automatically reboot a device every night at 2 am. Again, NO soldering. I’m going to give solid, in-depth instructions for each phase of the project, so you will need zero experience in order to duplicate my results. This first entry covering the project will show you how to set up the Pi for flashing the plug.
Continue reading “Flash a Wi-Fi Plug with Tasmota for Hubitat…. WITHOUT soldering! Part I”
In Part I of this project, we jumpered a series of buttons to a voltage divider that we connected to the Nano. Along the way, we discussed the basics of what resistors are and what their values mean. In the conclusion of the project, we’ll answer the very important question “what can I do with that?” as we dive into the code.
Continue reading “Learn To Program Arduino IV: Electrical Resistance and Code Reusuability (2 of 2)”